Object Storage Service (OSS) is a secure, low-cost, and highly durable cloud storage service from Alibaba Cloud that offers massive storage capacity. OSS is designed to provide data durability of at least 99.9999999999% (twelve 9s) and service availability of at least 99.995%. OSS provides platform-independent RESTful API operations, which allow you to store and access any type of data from any application, at any time, and from anywhere.
Storage classes
OSS provides the following storage classes for various data storage scenarios from cold data storage to hot data storage: Standard, IA, Archive, Cold Archive, and Deep Cold Archive.
Storage Class | Description |
Standard | Standard provides highly reliable, highly available, and high-performance object storage for data that is frequently accessed. Standard is suitable for various business applications, such as social networking applications, image, audio, and video resource sharing applications, large websites, and big data analytics. |
IA | IA provides highly durable storage at lower prices compared with Standard. IA has a minimum billable size of 64 KB and a minimum billable storage duration of 30 days. IA is suitable for data that is infrequently accessed, such as data accessed once or twice a month. You can access IA objects in real time. You are charged data retrieval fees when you access IA objects. |
Archive | Archive provides high-durability storage at lower prices compared with Standard and IA. Archive has a minimum billable size of 64 KB and a minimum billable storage duration of 60 days. You can access an Archive object after it is restored or real-time access of Archive objects is enabled. The amount of time that is required to restore an Archive object is approximately 1 minute. You are charged data retrieval fees if you restore an Archive object. If you access an Archive object after real-time access of Archive objects is enabled, you are charged Archive data retrieval fees based on the size of the Archive object. Archive is suitable for data that needs to be stored for a long period of time and is rarely accessed, such as archival data, medical images, scientific materials, and video footage. |
Cold Archive | Cold Archive provides highly durable storage at lower prices compared with Archive. Cold Archive has a minimum billable size of 64 KB and a minimum billable storage duration of 180 days. You must restore a Cold Archive object before you can access it. The amount of time required to restore a Cold Archive object varies based on the object size and restoration priority. You are charged data retrieval fees and API operation calling fees when you restore Cold Archive objects. Cold Archive is suitable for cold data that needs to be stored for an extended period of time, including data that must be retained for an extended period of time to meet compliance requirements, raw data that is accumulated over an extended period of time in the big data and AI fields, retained media resources in the film and television industries, and archived videos in the online education industry. |
Deep Cold Archive | Deep Cold Archive provides highly durable storage at lower prices compared with Cold Archive. Deep Cold Archive has a minimum billable size of 64 KB and a minimum billable storage duration of 180 days. You must restore a Deep Cold Archive object before you can access it. The amount of time that is required to restore a Deep Cold Archive object varies based on the object size and restoration priority. You are charged data retrieval fees and API operation calling fees when you restore Deep Cold Archive objects. Deep Cold Archive is suitable for extremely cold data that needs to be stored for an extremely long period of time, including raw data that is accumulated over an extended period of time in the big data and AI fields, retained media resources, regulatory and compliance documents, and data that is archived by using tapes. |
For more information about the storage classes, see Storage classes.
Scenarios
OSS can be used in the following scenarios:
Storage and distribution of static website content, audio, and video
Each file (Object) stored in OSS has a unique HTTP URL for content delivery. OSS can also serve as an origin for a content delivery network (CDN). Because OSS does not require partitioning, it is ideal for hosting data-intensive, user-generated content websites, such as image and video sharing sites. Various endpoint devices, web applications, and mobile applications can directly read from or write data to OSS. OSS supports both stream-based and file-based writes.
Static website hosting
OSS is a low-cost, high availability, and highly scalable solution for storing static HTML files, images, videos, and client-side scripts such as JavaScript.
Data storage for computing and analytics
The horizontal scalability of OSS allows data to be accessed from multiple compute nodes at the same time, which avoids the limitations of a single node.
Data backup and archiving
OSS offers a high availability, scalable, and secure solution for data backup and data archiving. You can set lifecycle rules to automatically transition cold data to the Infrequent Access or Archive Storage class to save on storage costs. You can also use cross-region replication to automatically and asynchronously replicate data between buckets in different regions for cross-region disaster recovery.
Performance
Data access between an Elastic Computing Service (ECS) instance and an Object Storage Service (OSS) bucket is fastest when they are in the same region. OSS is designed so that server-side latency is negligible compared to network latency. In addition, the scalability of OSS in terms of storage capacity, requests, and users makes it well-suited to support many web-scale applications. When multi-threaded processes, multiple applications, or multiple clients access OSS concurrently, the total aggregated throughput can scale far beyond the rate that a single server can generate or consume.
To improve the upload performance of large files (over 5 GB), Alibaba Cloud OSS provides the multipart upload feature. This feature splits the Object to be uploaded into multiple parts. The parts are uploaded separately and then combined into a single Object after the upload is complete. This enables resumable uploads. Multipart upload is suitable for scenarios with poor network conditions. If an upload fails, you can retry uploading only the failed part instead of the entire Object.
To improve data access speed, many developers use OSS with a search engine, such as OpenSearch, or a database, such as Tablestore or ApsaraDB RDS. OSS stores the actual data, while the search engine or database stores metadata, such as file names, sizes, and keywords. Metadata stored in a database is easy to index and query. Using OSS with a search engine or database lets you precisely locate and retrieve files in OSS.
To improve the performance of uploading and downloading large files over long distances and to meet the needs for dynamic file updates and download acceleration for non-hotspot files, OSS also provides the transfer acceleration feature. This feature offers an end-to-end acceleration solution through a smart scheduling system, optimized transmission links, a tuned protocol stack, optimized transport algorithms, and deep integration with OSS server-side policies.
For scenarios that require download acceleration for static hot-spot files, you can enable the Alibaba Cloud CDN service for OSS. Alibaba Cloud CDN uses an OSS bucket as the origin and publishes the source content to edge nodes. Alibaba Cloud CDN works with a precise CDN mapping system to assign user requests to the most suitable node. This allows end users to retrieve the required content as quickly as possible, which effectively reduces internet network congestion and improves user access response times.
Data durability and service availability
OSS uses a data redundancy mechanism to store data across multiple zones (AZs) in the same region. When a zone becomes unavailable, data access is still guaranteed. For deployments that use three AZs in the same city, OSS provides 99.9999999999% (twelve 9s) data durability and 99.995% data availability.
You can also enable cross-region replication for a bucket. After it is enabled, data is automatically and asynchronously replicated in near real-time between buckets in different regions. This supports cross-region disaster recovery. Both the source and destination buckets provide 99.9999999999% (twelve 9s) data durability and 99.995% data availability.
Extensibility and elasticity
OSS provides high extensibility and elasticity. A traditional file system can encounter issues when too many files are in the same directory. In contrast, the total storage capacity of OSS and the capacity of a single bucket are unlimited. You can store an unlimited number of files in a bucket. OSS automatically stores replicas of your data on different servers in the same region. All replicas share the high-performance capabilities of the Alibaba Cloud infrastructure.
Security
Alibaba Cloud Object Storage Service (OSS) has extensive Mitigation capabilities. It supports features such as server-side encryption, client-based encryption, hotlink protection whitelists, fine-grained permission control, log audit, and retention policies. OSS is the only cloud service in the Chinese mainland that is audited and certified by Cohasset Associates. It meets strict electronic record retention requirements, such as SEC Rule 17a-4(f), FINRA 4511, and CFTC 1.31. For more information about the security capabilities of OSS, see the OSS Security and Compliance Whitepaper.
Interfaces
OSS provides standard RESTful API operations. You can use API operations to store files (Objects) in buckets (top-level folders). Bucket names are globally unique. Each file has an Object Key (filename), which serves as its unique identifier within the bucket. OSS does not have the concept of folders. All elements are stored as files. However, you can simulate a folder by creating a file name that ends with a forward slash (/), such as folder1/folder2/file.
Developers typically use tools or software development kits (SDKs) that encapsulate API operations to develop applications. OSS currently provides SDKs for more than 10 programming languages, including Java, Python, PHP, Go, Android, and iOS. The command line interface ossutil provides a rich set of simple and convenient commands for managing buckets and Objects, such as ls, cp, cat, and config. It offers good operational performance, supports concurrent uploads, and runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac platforms. You can also use the or graphical management tool ossbrowser 1.0 to intuitively perform basic operations, such as browsing files and uploading or downloading files and folders (directories). Alternatively, you can use the graphical web application, the OSS console, to conveniently manage your OSS resources.
You can also use the event notification feature to stay informed about operations on your OSS resources. For more information, see Event notifications.
Billing model
OSS service fees consist of storage fees, traffic fees, request fees, and data processing fees. After you enable OSS, the pay-as-you-go billing method is used by default. This means you are charged based on the formula: Actual usage × Unit price. Each hour, the usage from the previous hour is calculated, and the cost is deducted from your account balance. For some billable items, you can also use the subscription billing method to further reduce costs. A subscription involves purchasing a specific resource plan in advance. When you use resources, the usage is deducted from the plan's quota. For more information, see Billable items.